Dark Horse Comics for January 2009

Dark Horse Comics has sent Major Spoilers the cover images and solicitation information for titles arriving in January 2009.Â Take the jump for all the info on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Bettie Page, Conan, B.P.R.D. and more.

BERSERK VOLUME 28
Kentaro Miura (W/A)

On sale Mar 25
b&w, 224 pages
$13.95
TPB, 5 1/8″ x 7 1/4″

Guts, the Black Swordsman, and his companions have finally arrived at the sea, where they discover a mysterious child who seems to share a special bond with Guts and his former lover, the now-mad Casca. The troupeâ€™s brief respite at the shore offers moments for quiet introspection and deeper bonding, but such peace is always short lived where Guts is involved, and Guts must once again don the demonic Berserker Armor to take on a force of bloodthirsty beasts emerging from the once-peaceful surf, possessed by the accursed sorcery of a powerful Kushan enchanter! And who knows what will happen when internal strife pushes a member of Gutsâ€™s band unknowingly into the comforting companionship of an enemy!

â€¢ Each volume of Berserk comes shrink-wrapped and carries an 18+ content advisory.

â€œBerserk is as shocking and unique as ever this far into the series. There are few titles out there that can sustain the level of intensity and relevance as this.â€ â€”AnimeonDVD.com

BETTIE PAGE HEAT-SENSITIVE MUG

On sale Feb 11
Packaged in deluxe full-color box
$14.99

Like your coffee HOT ?Â Well, hereâ€™s a scorcher!

We have taken one of Bunny Yeagerâ€™s best photographs of our longtime muse and inspiration Bettie Page, infused it with color, and applied it to a high-quality coffee mug.

But waitâ€”thereâ€™s more. When a hot beverage is poured into the cup, a magical transformation takes place, and our sultry cutieâ€™s top fades away. Oh, Nellie . . . that Bettie! If the coffee doesnâ€™t wake you up, that ought to do the trick.

BLOOD+ VOLUME 4: NANKURUNAISA
Ryo Ikehata (W) and Chizu Hashii (A)

On sale Mar11
b&w, 320 pages
$8.95
Novel, 5 1/8″ x 7 1/4″

In her attempts to stop Divaâ€™s plan of turning all of mankind into Chiropterans, Saya makes her way to the United States. Despite her forced rest, the time for action draws near. Meanwhile Diva, carrying Rikuâ€™s children, makes preparations for the birth of the queens of the next generation! With the fate of humanity resting with the two queens, who will rise and who will fall in the final showdown?! And what of the â€œpromiseâ€ Saya made with Haji?

â€¢ Featuring twenty-one pages of illustrations by series character designer Chizu Hashii.

â€¢ The official novelization of the popular animated series concludes!

â€œBlood+Â is a little bit of everything for everyone.â€ â€”PublishersÂ Weekly

â€œBlood+ was graced with a talented artist.â€ â€”Ainâ€™tItCoolNews.com

BLOOD+: RUSSIAN ROSE VOLUME 1
Karino Minazuki (W) and Ryo Takagi (A)

On sale Mar 18
b&w, 320 pages
$8.95
Novel, 5 1/8″ x 7 1/4″

Petrograd, Russia, at the turn of the twentieth century. Throughout Europe a vampiric menace stalks the streets: Chiropterans, incredibly strong inhuman monsters. A new organization of vampire hunters named Red Shield battles to stop the beasts, but they are outnumbered in the face of the superior might of the creatures. All that stands between the creatures and the end of humanity is a lone girl: Saya.

These two novels will explore the history of the Chiropteran menace, how Saya and her enigmatic mentor Hagi first met, and the inner secrets of the Red Shield organization.

At the turn of the twentieth century, a British museum curator with a bent for the occult traveled east in search of power and immortality. He was never heard from again.

In 1937, masked crimefighter The Lobster faced a magic-wielding madman bent on fulfilling an apocalyptic prophecy. The plans were foiled, and the world saved, but the villain himself disappeared . . .

Seventy years later, B.P.R.D. agent Liz Sherman began to experience visions of a mysterious gentleman who warned of coming catastrophes. When the Bureau tracked him down, he disappearedâ€”and kidnapped Liz.

Now, Lizâ€™s friends race to find her as their old enemies band together for a final, catastrophic attack.

The Black GoddessÂ is the second of three arcs pulling together threads from the beginning of the seriesâ€”and leaving the B.P.R.D. and the world forever changed.

Vampires are the hottest thing aroundâ€”forget hipsters; being a bloodsucking fiend is whereâ€™s itâ€™s at! Slayers must take the good fight underground if theyâ€™re to avoid any bad press from the general public.

When Kennedy is sent to Japan to evaluate Satsuâ€™s efforts as team leader, they are taken by surprise by some fierce furry creatures who want to do nothing more than destroy Buffy (surprise!), while Twilight remains the captain of the anti-Slayer ship.

Here are the facts we know so far: In less than twenty-four hours, a discreet team of private-practice trauma-scene cleaners has been dispatched to clean up two very large blood spills in the LA areaâ€”one filling a room at a prestigious landmark hotel, and another taking up half a suburban block in the Valley. There are no bodies to speak of, no known victims, no explanation for how or why the blood appeared. But Robert Bellarmineâ€”whose cleaning crews get called in to take care of the weirdest jobs, the ones the cops canâ€™t or wonâ€™t handleâ€”can already tell that both his advanced medical training and his scientifically skeptical mind will be pushed to the limit as he sets out to find a rational explanation for these sudden eruptions of gore. And when ten-year-old Henry Lisander goes missing the next day, Bellarmine knows he has even less time to figure out who or what is behind the bloodbath!

â€¢ Josh Fialkov is the writer behind the hit indie sensations Punks the Comic and Elkâ€™s Run, as well as highly acclaimed runs on Friday the 13th, Vampirella, and more!

CLOVER OMNIBUS EDITION
CLAMP (W/A)

On sale Mar 25
b&w, 512 pages
$19.95
TPB, 5 3/4″ x 8 1/4″

Kazuhiko is a young, but already deeply wounded black ops agent of a baroque, retro-tech futureâ€”pulled out of retirement to escort Sue, a mysterious waif, to a destination she alone knows. Sue and Kazuhiko have never met . . . yet she knows him, having grown up since the age of four with her only human contact two distant voices: that of her elderly â€œgrandma,â€ General Ko, and of Kazuhikoâ€™s dead girlfriend, Ora. And Sue has been kept in that cage all these years because of what she is, and what the Clover Leaf Project found her to beâ€”a military top secret, and the most dangerous person in the world.

â€¢ Never before available in its original Japanese right-to-left reading orientation, Dark Horse not only brings Clover into English for the first time, but also collects all four of the original volumes into one reasonably priced omnibus, with a brand-new cover design especially for this edition!

Tim Trumanâ€™s â€œCimmeriaâ€ story arc comes to an explosive finale and tribal politics come to a head, as the fate of Conanâ€™s new lover is decided! Conan learns the truth about why his grandfather stayed in Cimmeriaâ€”where the old warrior became a vital member of his adopted village, yet never let go of his daydreams and wanderlust. Brecan seeks to impress his chieftain father and end current clan tensions and disputes, but his â€œsolutionâ€ creates even more problems and puts him at odds with an enraged Conan. Everything ties together here, as the first Conan the Cimmerian arc crescendos into a flurry of swords and emotion!

â€œThe artists team up to create a pitch-perfect sword and sorcery aesthetic which easily ranks the book amongst the best of comparable books on the stands.â€Â â€”ign.com

FEAR AGENT VOLUME 5: I AGAINST I
Rick Remender (W)
Tony Moore (A)

On sale Mar 4
FC, 128 pages
$14.95
TPB, 7″ x 10″

After being shot through the other side of a black hole, Heath Huston finds himself in a shadow universe, marooned on the desolate Planet Westx. A stranger in a strange place, the last Fear Agent enters a world populated by gun-slinging robots, venomous mutants, and buxom cowgirls in this six-part sci-fi Western shot through the heart. Creators Rick Remender and Tony Moore reunite to bring you the good, the bad, and the ugly days of Heath Huston, outlaw . . . itâ€™s high noon in dead space.

Invisible alien film crews record your every moment for the entertainment of fat, anesthetized aliens throughout the universe. Gigantic, our would-be savior, fights to liberate us from this secretive voyeurism, but at what price? In order to restore order to their hit show â€œPlanet Earth,â€ the Universal Broadcast Network has sent Giganticâ€™s archnemesis, the Iconoclast, to stop him by any means necessary, leading to a world-shattering battle through time and space.

The year is 2530, and the corrupt Church, Vatican Ouest, has fallen, spreading upheaval across North America, along with an infestation of vampires. In this new world, Ex-COP leader Pellon Cross is still at large, devil-possessed Eppy Thatcher is missing, and Orion Assante is on an ambitious quest to restore order to the continent and gain legitimate power. But will Orion attain his goals before threats from overseas change the rules in this game for power?

â€¢ Grendel: Devilâ€™s Reign is a groundbreaking synthesis of politics, war, religion, and the devil created by two of the top talents in comics!

â€¢ Artist Tim Saleâ€™s work can be seen in the NBC hit show Heroes!

â€¢ Brand new painted cover by Grendel creator Matt Wagner!

Tim Saleâ€™s first major series in comics, collected for the very first time!

Hellboy contends with treacherous huntsmen, mystic visions, newly awakened bands of vicious giants, and a talking bird as he continues his journey across the rolling hills of England. Things far stranger await, should Hellboyâ€™s enemies succeed in resurrecting the Queen of Blood . . .
â€¢ Hot on the heels of the 2008 summer film releaseÂ Hellboy II: The Golden Army,Â Mike Mignola andÂ Duncan Fegredo reunite withÂ Hellboy: The Wild HuntÂ to follow up on the events of their best-selling 2007Â seriesÂ Hellboy: Darkness Calls.
â€¢ This issue also includes a backup story written by Mike Mignola and drawn by B.P.R.D. artist Guy Davis!

With Pict leader Ka-Nuâ€™s ominous warning still ringing in his ears, Kull must confront a more immediate crisisâ€”the wrath of his first wife, the Lady Igraine, whose venomous tongue threatens the validity of his claim to the throne. If that werenâ€™t enough, Kull must still meet with Brule, the formidable-yet-contentious Pict warrior whose insights will lead to a horrific revelation.

â€œTruly original ideas are worth their weight in gold, but a truly original idea executed with as muchÂ intelligenceÂ andÂ obviousÂ passion as Rex Mundi is priceless. A top-of-the-stack comic, month after month.â€
â€”BrianÂ K. Vaughn

A mystical artifact from the ancient past, the relic known only as the Mask imbues its wearer with nearly limitless power . . . face-stretching, mallet-forming, clock-smashing power. Slap the Mask on your mug and nothing is beyond your reachâ€”or the reach of a pie bombâ€”which is why every crook, grifter, creep, hood, miscreant, scofflaw, and other words in the thesaurus are out to get their mitts on it. The hunt for the valued vizard (thanks again, thesaurus!) goes from sea to shining sea, involving voodoo, Amazonian tribesmen, ninjas (sweet!), mafiosi, Crypto-Nazis . . . and the Bardard Thespian Club!

â€¢ The Mask Omnibus Volume 2 collects over 350 maniacal story pages, never before collected, of the acclaimed comics series that inspired the megahit motion picture.

Comic-book and graphic-design legend Dean Motter continues to reinvent his industry-changing creation in part two of Mister X: Condemned!

In a desperate attempt to rescue his citizens from the insanity-inducing architecture that surrounds them, the mayor of Radiant City employs giant robots to demolish the most maddening buildings. That is, until one such mechanical monstrosity razes the sanctuary of a reclusive sect of architectsâ€”with all 150 members inside! A freak accident or foul play? One man is determined to discover the truthâ€”the mysterious Mister X!

â€œMister X has appropriated the language and format of traditional American comic books and realigned them to serve a subversive agenda.â€ â€”SPIN magazine

OH MY GODDESS! COLORS
Kosuke Fujishima (W/A)

On sale Mar 11
FC, 192 pages
$19.95
TPB, 7″ x 10″

What’s inside? Letâ€™s start with whatâ€™s outside: a metallic gold embossed cover with french flaps, featuring the Goddess sisters on the front, and Belldandy and her angel Holy Bell on the interior. Then the contents kick off with a wacky intro to the Oh My Goddess! saga, in the form of an eight-page â€œfanâ€ manga by Neon Genesis Evangelion Angel designer Yoshitou Asari! Then, OMG! Colorsâ€™s namesake: four classic Oh My Goddess! stories, each focusing on a different goddess, and colorized under Kosuke Fujishimaâ€™s supervision. Finally, an exhaustive â€œEncyclopediaâ€ section cross-references the people, places, and things of the first thirty volumes of OMG!, including the differences between the two English versions, and many in-jokes about the series never before revealed!

â€œOh My Goddess! Is an eternally charming manga series with magical humor and a big heart.â€ â€”ActiveAnime.com

PLANET OF BEER
Brian Sendelbach (W/A)

On sale Mar 18
FC, 152 pages
$14.95
TPB, 12″ x 8″

Dark Horse is proud to present . . . actually, make that giggling manically as we present one of the silliestâ€”yet most subversive and darkly funnyâ€”collections of comics youâ€™ll see this year.Â Planet of BeerÂ selects the best and weirdest comic strips from the popular underground weekly comicÂ Smell of SteveÂ in one gloriously colored, landscape-format book. Join creator Brian Sendelbachâ€™s all-misfit cast of underloved underwater superheroes, space-faring former U.S. presidents, soul-sucking alien DJs, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, and other insane characters as they work together to find the elusive and legendary Planet of Beer. Actually, thatâ€™s way more of a sensible plot than youâ€™ll actually find in this book, but if you like your comics absurd, awesome, and maybe just a tiny bit disturbing and wrong, weâ€™re pretty sure youâ€™re going to love this book.

â€¢Â The Smell of Steve strip started running in The Stranger (Seattle, WA) in the mid-1990s, and eventually ran in Vice magazine,Â The New York Press, The Philadelphia Weekly, Baltimore City Paper, The Portland Mercury, Terminal City (Vancouver, BC), Punchline (Richmond, VA), The Weekly Alibi (Albuquerque, NM), The Bohemian (San Jose, CA), and GoGo (Denver, CO).

â€¢Â For a look at the hilarious Smell of Steve strips that make up Planet of Beer, go to:
HYPERLINK “http://www.myspace.com/smellofsteve”www.myspace.com/smellofsteve

The Castle of the Devil hides several secretsâ€”the most horrible of which may still be locked at the base of the castle in the ruins of an ancient abbey. Solomon Kane gets closer to unveiling the truth behind the crazed monks who used to live there, as he deals with the castleâ€™s current batch of strange inhabitants. Escaping with John Silent, his wounded companion, is out of the question, because Kane also seeks justice for the souls of innocent children who were killed on the gallows that litter this evil, tainted region of Germanyâ€™s Black Forest.

â€œWith art and writing that perfectly captures the pulp weirdness of his birth, Solomon Kane officially becomes the only Puritan Iâ€™ve ever been a fan of. Donâ€™t miss out on these weird tales, youâ€™ll regret it.â€ â€”Ed Brubaker

The story rolls into a shocking finale!

THE SPIRIT MOVIE STATUE AND SNOW GLOBE

One of the most anticipated new films of the year is Frank Millerâ€™s movie adaptation of Will Eisnerâ€™s comic strip The Spirit, opening Christmas Day. Dark Horse is happy to celebrate the forthcoming release with some very sophisticated limited-edition pieces based on the characters as they appear in the film.

The continual snowfall is a graphic theme in The Spirit, as it has often been in Frank Millerâ€™s graphic stories, and creates a visual atmosphere that oozes drama. Therefore, it was not hard to imagine a beautiful snow globe that would capture and reproduce the effect. Crafting the miniature environment was a technical challenge for Dark Horse and sculptors Kolby Jukes and Oluf Hartvigson, but the result is a unique collectible that is fascinating.

Former Padawan Zayne Carrickâ€™s new life takes a turn for the worse as a con gone wrong puts his friends in a deadly predicament!

Fleecing the corrupt financial exchange on Metellos 3 seemed like a victimless crime to Zayneâ€™s friends Jarael and Rohlanâ€”until they became the victims! Now prisoners of a galactic criminal syndicate, Jarael and Rohlan must find a way to survive long enough for Zayne and his conniving cohort Gryph to rescue them!

â€¢ Make sure to be there as the conclusion to â€œProphet Motiveâ€ propels Knights of the Old Republic into a brand-new galaxy of adventures!

Darth Kraytâ€™s program to exterminate the Mon Calamari is still in progress, with only theÂ Mon Cal Rangers standing between the refugee populace and certain doom. Now a Sith scientist has a new weapon against which the Rangers are powerless.

Faced with a choice between allowing refugees to perish and sacrificing themselves in a fruitless delaying action, the Rangers turn to an unexpectedâ€”and reluctantâ€”source for help.

â€œStar Wars: Legacy took a gamble by jumping the Star Wars saga one hundred years past what we knew about it and it has paid off. Itâ€™s a great series.â€
â€”BlogCritics.com

STYLE SCHOOL VOLUME 4
Various (W/A)

On sale Mar 25
FC, 176 pages
$16.95
TPB, 8 7/8″ x 10 1/8″

Do you love the artistic styles of manga and anime? Well, Dark Horse has a treat for you, with the fourth volume of the wonderfully instructional world of Style School. Within these gorgeous pages youâ€™ll find all the tricks of the trade and dazzling images to inspire you to create works of your very own.Â Learn techniques from top artists tutoring you on watercolor, digital coloring, screen tones, markers, pen, brush, and acrylics. Includes informative how-to sections alongside art from aspiring artists from around the globe.

Also, all the information you need to submit your very own art to be considered for publication in upcoming issues of SS magazine in Japan!

â€¢ Includes many how-to techniques for numerous different art styles!

â€¢ Style School contains hundreds of full-color and black-and-white illustrations!

â€¢ A must-have book for any aspiring manga or anime artist.
.
â€¢ One of the most successful art publications in Japan, published for the first time in English.

From ancient times to the present, we have been mystified, frightened, and inspired by dinosaurs. Our fascination was perfectly captured in Dellâ€™s Turok: Son of Stone cover paintings, which teamed American Indian warrior Turok with a variety of saurian adversaries. While these renderings of dinosaurs were considered to be accurate in the1950s and â€˜60s, modern paleontology has given us a new understanding of the reptile denizens of prehistory. Veteran illustrator and dinosaur expert Pete Von Sholly has created an absolutely stunning series of trading cards depicting the weirdest and most mysterious cover, with scientifically accurate dinosaurs, effectively updating this classic genre with fifty new pieces. Text on the back of the card tells details of the dinosaurs.Â This set will amaze and inform casual observers and serious Turok or dinosaur buffs alike.

Clare Boothe Luce, Republican congresswoman, ambassador, and playwright, was the daughter of unmarried violinist and deserter Wm. Franklin Boothe. (The Umbrella Academy does not approve of the term â€œillegitimate child.â€ Every child is legitimate; itâ€™s some parents we find to be lacking.) Through her varied career, she took on communism, sexism, and Nazism. When her friend, actress and legendary suicide Dorothy Hale, threw herself from the sixteenth floor of New York Cityâ€™s Hampshire House, Luce compelled art goddess Frida Kahlo to paint the shocking El Suicidio de Dorothy Hale. In 1953, President Eisenhower named Luce ambassador to Italy. When she met Pope Pius XII, Luce, ignoring Americaâ€™s own ethic about separation of church and state, explained the Churchâ€™s moral requirement to be tougher on communism. Pope Pius replied, â€œYou know, Mrs. Ambassador, I am a Catholic, too.â€ Â Seven years later, the United States would elect its first Catholic president.

USAGI YOJIMBO #117
Stan Sakai (W/A)

On sale Jan 28
b&w, 25 pages
$3.50
Ongoing

The rabbit ronin Usagi wanders into a new three-part adventure that begins with the unleashing of a never-before-seen threat!

Three hundred years ago, Lord Hayashi quashed an uprising incited by Lord Nobu, slaughtering all traitors and leaving their bodies unburied as punishment at the Battle of the Gray Overlook. Now, something has happened and Sasuke the Demon Queller has been called upon to face a new evil. A delicate balance exists between the powers of light and darkness, and when the thief Kitsune picks the purse of a samurai to find a small, nondescript jewel, she threatens to upset this balance forever!

Baron Byron Balazs nears the end of his arduous journey; his bodyguardâ€”the enigmatic and deadly Vampire Hunter Dâ€”has delivered him to his faraway home in Krauhausen. Having survived the near-epic journey, and many attempts on his lifeâ€”ordered by his father, the dread Vampire Noble Lord Vladâ€”the baron thinks he is ready for his final battle, whatever the cost. But Lord Vlad is not so easily vanquished, as he unleashes yet another host of nefarious killers on his son, not least of whom is a mad doctor who was enlisted to perform sinister experiments on the young baronâ€™s mother years before!

â€¢ The epic conclusion of the longest Vampire Hunter D story ever. This book was originally published in four individual novels in Japan. To make this more affordable for fans, weâ€™re releasing this mega-novel as two omnibus volumes!

â€¢ Features thirteen black-and-white line illustrations by Yoshitaka Amano.

â€¢ Awareness of Amanoâ€™s work will be heightened this year with the release of Shinjuku, Amanoâ€™s first original book for Dark Horse with film director Mink.

Every bit as dangerous as the Covenant zealots, the seemingly mindless Flood infection threatens to overrun the galaxy. While protecting Earth from its would-be Covenant conquerors, the Master Chief must also fend off the relentless advance of these biological monstrositiesâ€”disturbing masses of meat and bone, distorted and sculpted into killing machines in service to the Gravemind.

XS VOLUME 4: DISILLUSION
Song Ji-Hyung (W/A)

On sale Mar 4
b&w, 192 pages
$10.95
TPB, 5 1/8″ x 7 3/8″

Welcome to the continuing story of In-chang and Mina, two teens who have known each other since they were little. As theyâ€™ve grown up within this digital cloak-and-dagger mystery, their young infatuation has quickly turned into adult dependency. As a global virus threatens to destroy all of humanity, can In-chang keep Mina safe or will the odds be too great for him to handle?

â€¢ Creator of â€™Til Death Do Us Part, one of the top manga in Square Enixâ€™s manga library (currently running in Young GanGan comics monthly).

The Author

Stephen Schleicher

Stephen Schleicher began his career writing for the Digital Media Online community of sites, including Digital Producer and Creative Mac covering all aspects of the digital content creation industry. He then moved on to consumer technology, and began the Coolness Roundup podcast. A writing fool, Stephen has freelanced for Sci-Fi Channel's Technology Blog, and Gizmodo. Still longing for the good ol' days, Stephen launched Major Spoilers in July 2006, because he is a glutton for punishment.

You can follow him on Twitter @MajorSpoilers and tell him your darkest secrets...